What Would Miss Marple Do?
by RubinAmigo
Summary: AU, Destiel. Dean finally wants his new boyfriend Castiel to meet his family but when they arrive something is very wrong and the planned happy family dinner turns into a desaster, leaving the boys to sort the mess out before something else happens. This is supposed to be a murder mystery, so there'll be a dead body!
1. Chapter 1

**This has been inspired by a writing competition I read about. I decided to try the plot out as a Destiel story and I've already learned that this is going to be way too long to work as a competition entry. Oh well, I can still develop a story and then severely shorten it and of course change a few things.**

**Anyway, this is not a Miss Marple crossover, although that would be hilarious. I just kind of see the setting of the Miss Marple movies when writing this :) I hope you'll enjoy the story.**

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"Come, I can't wait for you to meet my family," Dean urged Castiel to move faster. He had been reluctant at first to introduce his boyfriend to his family but they had been a couple for six months now and Castiel was rightly expecting to meet Dean's family. After all he had introduced Dean to his family after only a month and it had been only a minor disaster, mostly due to Gabriel's penchant of pranking everyone who didn't know him.

And Castiel hadn't been the only one pressuring Dean to have the family dinner they were now going to. Dean's brother Sam had been dying to meet Castiel ever since he'd heard about their relationship and after John had gotten over the fact that his eldest son was, and had always secretly been, gay, he had also been curious to see what kind of man could steal his son's heart.

After some trouble with finding the perfect time they had settled for the start of Sam's summer break from college and had decided to have a family dinner on Sam's first night home from school. Now they had arrived at the Winchester's house and Dean was nervous and wanted to get the initial awkwardness, that was certain to occur, over with, but Castiel was taking his time getting out of the car, to admire the little cobblestone mansion John Winchester had worked very hard far as a young man.

"I'm coming Dean," Castiel said with a smile, his amazing blue eyes twinkling as he watched his boyfriend almost squirm with anxiety over this meeting. But the dark-haired man wanted to savor every moment of this visit; he had waited so long for it. Slowly he walked up the path to the mansion's front door, ignoring Dean's attempts to make him go faster by pulling on his hand.

When they reached the door he turned around to let his gaze sweep over the grounds. The shiny black Impala looked a little out of place here but then so did Dean in his old, worn leather jacket. Though Dean and the car were the perfect match and that mattered more than whether he looked like he belonged in this place.

"Okay, let's go inside," Castiel finally said and Dean sighed in relief as he pushed open the door to reveal a rather dark hall.

"Hello?" he called into the house. "Anyone home? Sam? Dad?"

"Dean?" a voice called from somewhere deep inside the house and then there were hurried steps heading in their direction, soon revealing a young man quickly coming down the sweeping staircase.

"Sam. I didn't expect you to be here yet," Dean said as soon as Sam stood in front of him and they had awkwardly hugged as a greeting.

"Apparently neither did Dad. I can't find him anywhere, he must have gone out. Anyway, I'm Sam and you must be Castiel. I have heard a lot about you," Sam said, turning to face Castiel and holding out his hand to the smaller man.

"Hello Sam. It's nice to finally meet you. I doubt that you have heard a lot about me though," Castiel replied.

"Yes, you're right," Sam admitted and ignored Dean rolling his eyes at them. "That's why I couldn't wait to meet you."

"So, what now?" Dean asked to break an uncomfortable moment of silence that followed Sam's statement. "I say we get a drink and wait for Dad to come back."

The other two nodded in agreement and the three men moved towards the dining room when they heard a door opening in the back of the house. Immediately they changed direction and entered the kitchen where they met a tough looking woman carrying a huge amount of groceries inside. They quickly helped her with her burden and then Sam and Dean happily greeted the woman.

"Ellen. It's so good to see you," Dean said as he and Sam both hugged her. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, your father asked me to help with the cooking, since all he is capable of is opening a can and heating it on the stove. If I didn't cook for him every now and then he'd never eat real food. And of course I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see you boys," Ellen explained, smiling fondly at them, stopping when she noticed Castiel standing quietly a few steps away.

"Hello there. I'm Ellen, a family friend. And you are?"

"My name is Castiel. It's nice to meet you Ellen," Castiel replied and took the offered hand.

"He's Dean's boyfriend," Sam outed them with a smirk, earning a glare from his brother.

"Boyfriend," Ellen said looking at the two of them curiously. "Well, I can't say I've never wondered about you, Dean Winchester. But Jo will be so disappointed. She's never given up hope."

"Who's Jo?" Castiel asked.

"She Ellen's daughter. She's like a sister to Sam and me," Dean replied and moved closer to Cas, putting an arm around his waist.

"Yeah. She always got in trouble because of the two of you," Ellen said and Sam and Dean both chuckled at the memories. "Anyway, we can talk about that later. Where is your father? I haven't seen him all day and he was supposed to help me with the groceries."

"He wasn't here when I got here, but I haven't been here long. Maybe something came up and he had to leave? Maybe he left a note somewhere. I'll check his study, I haven't been there yet," Sam decided and left the kitchen.

A minute later there was a muffled scream from the front of the house and the three in the kitchen exchanged brief concerned looks before hurrying towards the origin of the sound. Outside John Winchester's study they met Sam who was white in the face and holding on to the doorframe for support.

"Sam, what's….?" Dean started to ask but then he saw for himself what was wrong. There was blood on the floor of the study. A lot of blood. And the lifeless body of John Winchester, buried underneath a heavy bookshelf that had apparently fallen on top of him and struck him dead.

"Oh my god," he breathed, instinctively looking to Cas for comfort, and Ellen, who had peaked inside the room over his shoulder screamed, drowning out any other reaction by one of the guys.

They managed to close the door and retreat into the living room, where they all sat down, while Sam, who had somehow regained his ability to speak coherently, called the police. Then he handed out whiskey to all of them and they sipped their drinks while they waited for the police to arrive.


	2. Chapter 2

They only had to wait ten minutes for some uniformed cops to arrive and secure the scene and another ten minutes for the coroner and two detectives to come and look at the body.

"Detective Adler and this is detective Milton," the older man introduced himself and his partner, while another man brushed past them without a word. "And that grumpy old man was the coroner," the younger detective added.

"I heard that, Michael. You better be quiet if you don't want me to tell everyone in the precinct about your first visit to the morgue," the coroner called from the study.

"There's no story to tell, Bobby," Michael called back.

"If you say so..."

"Okay, enough now. Show some respect. These people have just lost a loved one," detective Adler admonished his partner and both of them turned back to the group.

"Sorry sir," detective Milton mumbled.

"My name is Sam and this is my brother Dean," Sam now told the cops, pointing at himself and Dean. "We are the – sons." There was a short break when he couldn't bring himself to say 'victim' or 'deceased' or any other word that would acknowledge their dad's death.

"And those two are Ellen and Castiel, friends of ours," he added after a moment, almost like an afterthought. But due to the circumstances that kind of behavior could be excused.

"Well, okay," detective Adler said already halfway out of the room. "Wait here please while we look at the scene. We'll need to talk to all of you later."

The four nodded and the detectives left to look at the body before the coroner took it away to the morgue. No one said a word while they waited. They were all still too shocked by the recent events and lost in their own thoughts. Castiel gently held Dean's hand but otherwise gave his boyfriend the space he needed at the moment. Sam and Ellen were sitting close together, leaning against each other, their hands linked. They were silently giving each other the strength they needed to get through the next few hours.

It didn't take long for the detectives to return. "Well, this all looks like a very unfortunate accident. Of course we'll wait for the results of the autopsy but I don't think there will an investigation. Now we'll just take all your statements and then we'll be on our way again," detective Adler announced.

"A..an accident?" Dean asked slowly and the detectives nodded.

"Looks like it," the younger one confirmed. "Would you two come into the kitchen with me so I can take your statements?"

"Sure. What about..." Castiel started to ask about Sam and Ellen but detective Adler interrupted him.

"I'll stay here with them. It's quicker that way," he informed the group non too friendly. Now that it looked like an accidental death he seemed to feel like they were wasting his time.

"Okay," Castiel muttered under his breath, a little taken aback by the sudden rudeness. "I was just wondering." It was probably a good thing that they were already halfway to the kitchen and detective Adler couldn't hear his quiet remark.

"Sorry about that. He's been having a hard time lately. Too many unsolved cases and not enough people to work on them. He's been taking the heat from the boss about it, so an accident for him means he can't work on solving a real case."

There was a pause while they all sat down around the kitchen table and then Dean and Castiel waited for the detective to ask what he wanted to know.

"Okay, let's do this. Just tell me everything that happened since you arrived at the house today."

Cas and Dean exchanged a look and then Cas started talking, telling the cop everything from he moment that they had pulled up to the house until the police arrived. Detective Milton interrupted him a few times, asking some questions for clarification and then finally put down his pen, indicating that he had everything he needed.

Just as he did this there was a shout from the other room. "Milton, what's taking so long?"

"Coming!" detective Milton hurriedly replied and with an apologetic look got up and quickly went to meet his partner. Cas and Dean followed at a much slower pace and met up with Sam and Ellen who were standing by the front door, watching John Winchester's body being loaded into the hearse. It was a tough moment for them all.

They watched until the cars were out of sight. Then Ellen announced that she would make dinner and disappeared into the kitchen. None of the guys told her that they didn't really want to eat anything right now and they suspected that Ellen really just needed something to do.

The three guys went to John Winchester's study to take another look at the place where it had happened. They couldn't help it. Even though it was the last place they really wanted to be they were inevitably drawn there. Something just wasn't right with the death being ruled an accident and they all felt it.

Now they were looking for clues, something that the police might have missed. But an hour later, when Ellen called them down because dinner was on the table, they had nothing. They had to admit that it really did look like a freak accident and that the bookshelf had just happened to fall down when John Winchester was standing next to it.

Feeling dispirited they went to the kitchen where Ellen had set the table. "This looks delicious, Ellen," Castiel told her and Sam and Dean just nodded quietly.

"Thank you. I know it's hard but we all should try to eat something. Even if it is just a bite," she replied.

The guys all nodded again and then they started to eat. Even though the food was great they all didn't eat much and in the end Ellen just took the filled plates away and cleared the table, packing up the leftovers for the following days and washing the dishes.

"I should go home now," she finally told them when the kitchen was clean again. "And you should go to bed. The coming days will be difficult. There will be a lot of things to take care of. I know you don't want to think about it right now but in a day or two you will have to. I will help you as much as I can."

"Thank you, Ellen. We appreciate that," Sam said.

Ellen then hugged all three of them and said goodbye. As soon as she was gone the house felt quiet and even sadder than before. The men had another round of drinks and pretty soon they went to bed. Apparently John had prepared the guest rooms before his accident. Or, more likely, Ellen had prepared the rooms for him the day before.

Whoever it had been they were grateful that they could just fall into bed and try to sleep. Thanks to the alcohol they'd all had sleep came quickly. But in the middle of the night Castiel woke up and found the bed next to him empty. He figured Dean had probably just gone to the bathroom and turned over to go back to sleep. But when he closed his eyes he realized that something didn't add up.

There was no light under the door to the bathroom. Surely Dean would have switched on the light. Cas waited and listened for a moment but there were no sounds, other than the wind outside the bedroom window. After a few more seconds he got out of bed, went to the bathroom and found it empty. Now that he was out of bed anyway he might as well go looking for Dean and he already had an idea as to where he might find him.

His hunch proved correct when he saw the light coming from John Winchester's study. "Hey. Couldn't sleep?" he asked quietly, wrapping one arm around Dean's waist.

"No, something kept bothering me and I had to check it out again." He pulled his boyfriend closer to him. "And I found it, Cas. I found it. It wasn't an accident. Someone murdered my dad and I will find that son of a bitch and make him pay."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello everyone. I've had a phase where I was lacking motivation to write but I have not forgotten any of my stories. And lately I have been writing more frequently again and I hope that this will continue. Enjoy the new chapter :)**

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"Really? What did you find?" Castiel asked curiously. He wasn't sure if it was actually good news that John Winchester had been murdered instead of dying in a freak household accident, but it seemed to mean a lot to Dean and he would support anything that made Dean feel better about this awful situation.

"Look at the wall, where the screws used to be. They didn't just 'fall out'. This does not look like material failure. Someone tampered with them," Dean told Cas, showing him where he thought he saw signs of sabotage.

"I don't know, Dean. It's hard to tell," Cas said carefully after inspecting the holes in the wall. "Maybe someone really did something to loosen the screws, I don't know. But even if they did, how would they have made sure the shelf would fall on top of your dad and not crash to the floor at any other time?"

"I don't know yet. I guess whoever did this must have been here with my dad to make sure his plan worked." Dean sighed. "I really don't know, but I'll figure it out, tomorrow."

"I'm sure you will. Let's go back to bed for now. Getting some sleep will help you finding an explanation."

"Yes, you're probably right," Dean said and let Cas pull him along out of the study and back to their bedroom.

As Cas was falling asleep again he heard his boyfriend whisper something in the darkness. "Thank you, Cas. For staying here with me."

"Of course," Cas whispered back and smiled at the man lying next to him in the darkness. Dean didn't like to admit that he needed someone else for anything so his words meant a lot to Cas, even though Dean hadn't been able to speak them until the lights were out and he didn't have to look into his lover's eyes.

Eventually he would be able to trust Cas completely and Cas had no problem with waiting. He loved Dean and he knew that the other man loved him back and that was all that mattered to him at the moment. Time would take care of the rest. He fell asleep with the smile still present on his lips.

The next morning Castiel was the first one to wake up and he decided to let the Winchesters sleep and prepare breakfast. But when he passed the windows in the front of the house on his way to the kitchen he stopped, surprised to see that a small crowd had gathered outside.

As soon as they noticed him moving about inside the house they rushed up to the door and started knocking. Quickly Castiel opened the door, afraid that the noise would wake up Sam and Dean who were still sleeping and needed as much peace and rest as they could get at the moment.

"Good morning. Who are you?" a woman in her mid-forties at the front of the crowd demanded to know. She looked the nosy kind of woman every neighborhood had, the kind of person who observed everything, mostly just saw what other people did wrong and who was the first to spread a new rumor.

And still this was the kind of woman who the rest of the neighborhood turned to first when they needed information on someone and the kind of woman who participated in school councils, bake-sales and all kind of community work that would make her look better than everyone else.

And this woman was now intruding with the rest of the neighborhood and demanded to know who the young man was, who had opened the door for them.

"I'm a friend of the Winchesters," Castiel said, deciding not to tell her anything she didn't absolutely need to know.

"Oh, well, good. We are from the neighborhood and when we heard about what happened we thought that maybe we could help those poor boys out. We brought food." She beamed at Cas and held up the casserole she had brought as an excuse for being there.

"Oh, how nice of you. Thank you." Castiel said what was expected of him. "Here, let me take this," he offered, holding out his hands to take the casserole from her but she skillfully avoided him and squeezed past him into the house before he even noticed what was going on.

"No, silly. We'll take the food to the kitchen real quick. It's no problem." And with that she was already on her way through the house, curiously peeking inside the adjoining rooms.

"Excuse me, mam, that's a nice thought but Sam and Dean are still sleeping and..." He couldn't finish his sentence because the rest of the crowd was now pushing past him. Castiel had no chance to keep them outside.

He only hoped the noise wouldn't wake up the brothers but just as he thought this he heard footsteps from upstairs and then Dean's voice, which sounded annoyed.

"What the hell is going on here? Sam? Cas?"

"Just some neighbors dropping off some food for you and Sam," Cas called, hoping Dean wouldn't freak out and the people in the kitchen would just drop off the food and get the hell out of the house again.

Although judging from the sounds coming from the kitchen they had started coffee and were getting comfortable. 'How rude,' Cas thought, 'I never even invited them inside.'

"Neighbors?" Dean asked. He had apparently quickly thrown on some clothes and come downstairs to see what was going on. Sam followed a little bit later.

"Yes. Friends of your father's I suppose," Cas replied.

"Dad didn't have any friends around here except for Ellen. Is she among them?" Sam asked.

"No, she isn't here."

"So all these people are just here to gawk at us, at the crime scene?" Dean was furious.

"I...I'm sorry," Cas said. "I tried to stop them, but..."

"It's not your fault, Cas. Those vultures are like a force of nature. Unstoppable, like a hurricane when they want something," Sam reassured Cas while Dean was stomping towards the kitchen, his anger barely contained anymore.

A few seconds later they could hear Dean yelling in the kitchen, ordering everyone out of the house. Immediately people were hurrying back to the front door to leave. The woman who had led the group was the last one to leave, tutting and shaking her head at Dean as the oldest Winchester firmly pushed her through the hall and out the door, which he slammed shut with a satisfying bang after her.

"I can't believe these people. They didn't even like dad. They always said bad things about our family and tried to get him in trouble for not watering his front lawn or working on the car on a Sunday." Dean was still angry but he was starting to calm down.

"Well, at least they left the food here and they made coffee. Who wants breakfast?" he asked after he had vented his anger at the early morning intrusion and they all went into the kitchen where there was enough food to last them for at least a week.


End file.
